It is a travesty that pharmaceutical giant Gilead’s drug remdesivir (brand name VEKLURY®) ended up on the COVID-19 inpatient treatment protocol when a previous trial for Ebola revealed alarming toxicity and death rates, and the COVID-19 trial showed no statistically significant improvement in mortality, just a reduction in the median hospital stay -- a trial endpoint selected only after no improvement in mortality was observed.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book “The Real Anthony Fauci” explains that Fauci as head of NIAID and supervising the Gilead trials was already too invested in remdesivir to stop. It suggests that the hospital stay endpoint was favorably tainted by discharging the treatment group early (twice as many of this group had to be readmitted). Critical care physician Dr. Paul Marik insists that due to toxicity problems, Gilead “cooked” the first COVID-19 study leading to FDA authorization.
Early in the pandemic, President Trump, trusting Fauci’s recommendations, heaped lavish praise on Gilead and remdesivir. When Trump was hospitalized with COVID, he received a cocktail which included remdesivir and was discharged after three days. Ten days later, a large WHO study came out claiming remdesivir was ineffective for COVID, and the MSM collectively mocked Trump for touting it. Well, remdesivir still has FDA approval and is on NIH’s protocol, but I don’t see the MSM mocking Joe Biden or challenging the public health agencies; maybe they’re too busy suppressing the evidence of inefficacy they themselves cited earlier.
It’s one thing for the hoi polloi being forced to take remdesivir, but who made that decision for POTUS? Consider this timeline (pieced together from numerous sources):
To recap, on Oct. 2, 2020, Trump as a COVID inpatient began a 5-day course of remdesivir. But the timeline of publicly available info before Trump was hospitalized, and possibly the WHO study (whose results were released to Gilead in late September, so Fauci no doubt knew) about to be published, is loaded with negative news about remdesivir (not to mention suspicious behavior by Fauci; see the two April 29, 2020 entries). The only positive news was from the NIAID/Gilead May 22 report not subject to the usual levels of peer review and scrutiny, even then offering at best a decreased length of stay. While decreased length of stay has value in terms of reduced suffering and hospital costs, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather suffer with the disease a few more days than take on unnecessary and not insignificant risk of organ failure and death.
Why didn’t Trump’s doctors come to the same conclusion? I have not seen anyone ask this. Whether it was woeful ignorance, Trump’s previous commitment to remdesivir, blind faith in Fauci, or medical establishment pressure to follow the EUA, it looks like they needlessly risked his life.
The FDA recently expanded its approval of remdesivir for COVID-19 to those with kidney problems (!) despite the phase 3 study revealing a significantly higher rate of serious adverse events. The trail of death and destruction already left by remdesivir is heartbreaking. If Trump wins in 2024, maybe he can make things right going forward by getting remdesivir pulled from the COVID protocol. It won’t be soon enough.
W. A. Eliot is a pseudonym.
Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License